About Tim Commisso Advisory

This image depicts the City of Burlington Discovery Landing Facility which is home to Spencer's at the Waterfront.

Tim's extensive city building experience spans two decades.  Tim believes that successful city and community building is grounded in the respectful and mutually beneficial relationship developed between private and public sector stakeholders. 

As General Manager of Community Services, Tim was the executive lead of the transformational Burlington Downtown Waterfront project.  

Today, Burlington enjoys a world class public waterfront consisting of 3.5 km of protected lake views  and 85 acres of parks and open space stretching from the Brant St Pier to the Burlington Canal.  

Tim has developed extensive expertise and acumen in working closely with the development & building industry  related to city building projects. 

Having served as City Manager in both the GTHA and Northern Ontario, Tim is adept at resolving any municipal issue himself or working through his extensive network of colleagues. 

This image depicts the splash pad feature at the City of Thunder Bay Water Garden Facility.   This facility is also home to the Bight Restaurant and adjacent to the new Delta Waterfront Hotel by Marriott.  The Prince Arthur's Landing project attracted significant private sector investment which added vibrancy and appeal to the downtown waterfront.

As City Manager of Thunder Bay, Tim played a lead role in the strategy development for Phase 1 of Prince Arthur's Landing which encompassed a combined private and public investment of $130M.  The strategy was key to securing the private sector investment and over $45M in federal/provincial funding.

Today the City is moving forward with Phase 2 of the Waterfront development which, in addition to now attracting many spectacular great lakes cruise ships, will add more tourism destination attractions and public amenities.

   Related to corporate strategic management, Tim has a deep knowledge and understanding of strategy development & execution, organizational performance management, change management and strategic goal setting including integrated performance metrics.

This image depicts Paletta Mansion which is owned by the City of Burlington.  The renovation and restoration of the mansion and development of the adjacent 14 acre Paletta Lakefront Park, on the shore of Lake Ontario, was the City's millennial project.

The project team reported to Tim when he was General Manager of Community Services.  The unique and detailed nature of this restoration project, inclusive of donor recognition, required dedicated team work and focused project leadership and execution.

  Over the course of Tim's career, the list of successfully completed community projects, similar to Paletta Mansion, is extensive and diverse.  Today the mansion operates as a city facility providing community meeting space and rental banquet facilities.

 The image above is the new Thunder Bay Art Gallery (TBAG) which is currently under construction to be opened in 2025.

   As Thunder Bay City Manager, Tim secured City Council approval for an initial $5.7M funding contribution to the project.  The one time capital funding came from the Renew Thunder Bay Reserve Fund which Tim established in 2010.  To date over $40M of Federal/Provincial funding has been approved for the project.  When completed the new TBAG will be a world class destination, on the shore of Lake Superior, featuring a permanent collection of Indigenous woodland art.

Successful municipal projects normally start as a vision.  Tim's extensive financial and project management expertise provides him with an in-depth understanding of what it takes to move projects from vision to reality, inclusive of strong community support.   As a independent consultant, Tim completed several major capital project funding applications, including detailed cases for support, which  led directly to the projects being approved.

Tim is a skilled strategic planning facilitator and utilizes a highly participative methodology.    Tim adapts the methodology to normally complete a strategic planning process in 1-3 months maximum. The approach includes a combination of in-person group facilitated workshop sessions and virtual sessions for review of the draft and final documents.   

To date, Tim has personally facilitated and delivered strategic plans for several public sector organizations ranging from community not for profit, arts and culture and faith based organizations to larger Indigenous communities and municipalities.

Tim works closely with clients to design the strategic planning process and engages support from associates, as required, for  workshop data analysis and interpretation.

Tim welcomes organizations of all sizes as clients and is prepared to negotiate the fee for his strategic planning services on each client's ability to pay. 

The image above depicts the cover of the Northwestern Ontario Mining Readiness Strategy (Final Report 2013).

As Thunder Bay City Manager and board member of the Thunder Bay Community Economic Development Commission (TBCEDC), Tim developed the terms of reference, secured the $0.5M in regional partner funding and co-chaired the steering committee for the initial Northwestern Ontario mining readiness strategy.  Since the original document the Mining Readiness Strategy was updated by TBCEDC in 2020.

Tim has extensive experience in leading and preparing economic development and business development strategies.